In 2020, not long after Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death (which, like his life, was characteristically murky), U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George filed a massive criminal complaint against Epstein’s estate, alleging that his island was at the center of a criminal enterprise involving the sex trafficking of underage girls.
“The Epstein Enterprise in 1998 acquired Little St. James in the Virgin Islands as the perfect hideaway and haven for trafficking young women and underage girls for sexual servitude, child abuse and sexual assault,” the complaint declared, noting that the girls Epstein brought there had no way to escape the island, as it was too far to swim to the nearest island. Meanwhile, Epstein also had security guards patrolling the island, monitoring everyone who came and went. “Remember, he owns a whole island,” George told CBS News. “So it wasn’t a situation where a child or a young woman would be able to just break away and run down the street to the nearest police station.” One alleged victim, however, claimed they were apprehended while trying to escape, which George detailed in her complaint.
The Epstein estate ultimately settled, paying the U.S. Virgin Islands $105 million to make the sex trafficking case go away. A large chunk of that money was placed into a fund to help those who were victims of sex trafficking and sex abuse.
